there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to an incredible 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. switch and save with comcast business internet and mobile. find out how to pre-order and get the new samsung galaxy s25+ on us with a qualifying trade in. call, click or visit an xfinity store today. 9 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. in the meantime, you can find me on blue sky. do you have blue sky yet? you should try it if you don't have it yet. i am on blue sky at maddow's msnbc.com. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening lawrence. >> i'm looking at you on blue sky right now, where i am. lawrence o'donnell. all. one word. all those letters jammed together. amazon to dot,

msnbc.com. and it's really fun to be over here in blue sky in a world of social media sanity. it's a whole it's a whole new feeling. haven't had that feeling for quite a while. rachel, thank you so much for doing the math. hardest thing to do in the news business, but the math on these deportation flights. i was looking at this, you know, and seeing military aircraft. and then i in the story i'd read, there's like 82 people. i go, wait a minute, wait, you don't need you don't need that giant thing. this is this is a stunt. and of course, you've demonstrated that so well tonight that this is really just show business deportation. >> you can put 85 tons in a c-17 if you have a c-17, take off with 80 people in it. you are setting a gigantic pile of money on fire. and that is what

they're doing, and pledging to do it every day and pledging to use c-130s in addition to c-17s, which are an order of magnitude more expensive than that. and it is not because they are stuffed full of 85 tons worth of people. they're purely doing this for what it looks like while saying they need more money. and it's just, i mean, it's even if you like what they're doing with deportations, there's absolutely no just possible justification for why they need to spend this much taxpayer money just for the photo op. >> well, i think i know how chris hayes is going to explain this to me later in this hour tonight, when he comes on to discuss this great new book. got to make sure it's not reflecting. i think he's going to tell us these planes are about attention. they're about grabbing our attention to deportation. that's the argument he makes in this brilliant book about how we use our attention. he's written a book, rachel, how dare he? about the inner

workings of our minds. >> i know. >> i love the book, i have read it. i'm going to talk to him about it as well. i know the pub date is tomorrow. i will tell you. lawrence. when i was reading chris's book, when i first got the galley of it at the when i was about three chapters into it, i actually stopped, stopped reading, put it down, went to my closet, dug out my old record player and took out a my record player and put on a vinyl record so as to make my brain calm down enough and get out of digital space enough that i could calmly take in what chris was telling me about our attention and the world. that digital life has rewired our brains so that we can't focus on anything without wanting to skip to the next thing. it was like i needed. i needed to give myself therapy in order to get through it, and i'm very glad that i did. >> well, i'm going to explain to doctor hayes tonight what i do on weekends in my attention, attention, management regime and see if he approves of that. i'm

going to give you a hint. it's an incredibly lazy choice. and so but i think he's going to approve based on what i've read in the book. >> well, i've got a bunch of old weird vinyl that i can share with you if you want to use my if you want to use my therapy choice to lawrence. >> i should try that. we'll try that. yeah. thanks, rachel. >> thanks, lawrence. >> well, the right wing trump supporting website the daily caller ran a happy headline for them, saying that donald trump as president takes more questions than joe biden did as president. and they're right. they are very right. to use the verb takes instead of the verb answers. donald trump takes more questions publicly than any president in history, but he answers fewer questions than any president in history, because a lie is not an answer. to be a member of the white house press

corps now is to become practice. in taking donald trump dictation of lies, which donald trump does with a casual confidence, knowing that the white house press corps will never scream at him the way they could scream at joe biden whenever they felt like it, whenever they had a chance, whenever they were close enough. and so when donald trump told his lies about firing 18 inspectors general late on friday night, i mean, happened late on friday night, he didn't tell his lies till later in the weekend. the white house press corps could do nothing but write down the lies and report them. donald trump, in effect, said that he had no personal knowledge of why he fired the inspectors general. he said, quote, some people thought that some were unfair or some were not doing the job. it's entirely possible that some people who donald trump talks to thought that some unnamed inspectors

general were unfair, but who are those people who thought that? and what was the unfairness they imagined? there was no chance, zero chance, of getting any answers about that. when donald trump told the white house press corps the lie that it was, quote, a very standard thing to do, they all reported that quote, and the good ones would say in the next line, as the new york times did, that is not true. richard nixon was the most corrupt president in history prior to donald trump and after republican richard nixon's corruption forced him to resign from office in 1974, congress spent the next few years coming up with ways to prevent the next richard nixon. one of those anti-nixon anti-corruption ideas was the creation of inspectors general in the government departments. richard nixon corrupted the justice department

to the point that his attorney general, john mitchell, went to prison. and so to shore up the integrity of the justice department, there would now be an inspector general of the department of justice and of every other department in the government. richard nixon abused the internal revenue service by ordering tax audits of people on his enemies list. congress then made that illegal and created an inspector general in the treasury department to keep an eye on that. the inspector general act of 1978 passed the united states senate unanimously, zero opposition. and one of the things that republicans really loved about it was that inspectors general were charged with investigating waste, fraud and abuse in every department of the government. waste, fraud and abuse was one of the republican battle cries

that ronald reagan was using then in what would become his successful campaign to be the next president of the united states. and republican senators of that era were as outraged and offended by republican president richard nixon's corruption, as democratic senators were. outrage at presidential crime did not become partizan until the trump era. after the corruption and impeachments and indictments of donald trump, congress once again turned to the inspector general law to try to add a defense against the next donald trump, who turned out to be donald trump. in 2022, congress added specifics to the section referring to presidential removal of an inspector general, saying that a president needed to provide 30 days notice to congress of the intention to remove an inspector

general and provide, quote, substantive rationale, including detailed and case specific reasons. donald trump didn't do either of those things when he did his late night, friday night firings. and so donald trump could not finish his first week as president of the united states without violating the law. >> do you think he violated. >> the law? well, technically, yeah. but he has the authority to do it. >> sorry, but it's really one or the other. it's either technically, yeah, or he has the authority to do it. it cannot be both. senator graham got it right the first time. technically, yeah. donald trump violated the law. republican senator susan collins was willing to portray herself as the only adult in maine without enough common sense to figure

out what donald trump was actually doing, she said. i don't understand why one would fire individuals whose mission is to root out waste, fraud and abuse. so this leaves a gap in what i know is a priority for president trump. one of the inspectors general, annabelle ware, said this. >> well, the reason is actually the most alarming part. the reason was due to changing priorities of the administration. and the reason that is alarming is because igs are not a part of any administration. igs oversee how the priorities of the administration is being conducted to make sure that there is transparency in government, and to make sure that there is no fraud, waste and abuse in how taxpayer funds are being expended. we're looking at what amounts to a threat to democracy, a threat to

independent oversight, and a threat to transparency and government. this is the statute isn't just a technicality. it's a key protection of ig independence is what it is. and just like you like you referenced just over two years ago, these things were put in to strengthen our independence, not to weaken it and treat it as if it's a technicality. >> the oldest member of the united states senate, republican chuck grassley of iowa, used to consider himself. maybe he still does consider himself a champion of inspectors general, and his enthusiasm for inspectors general was so contagious that the junior senator from iowa, joni ernst, joined him in helping to create a bipartisan team of senators whose plan until this weekend, anyway, was to strongly support inspectors general. chuck grassley is a

republican senator who i used to fully respect when i was the staff director of the senate finance committee for the democratic chairman, daniel patrick moynihan. and senator grassley was one of the republican members of that committee. committee. chuck grassley, then, was always a predictable vote because his positions were based on republican party principles of that time, including his very strong stance, along with all republicans. then against tariffs in the committee that has jurisdiction over tariffs. senator grassley usually, but not always, voted against what democrats were trying to do on the committee. and i never once questioned the motivation for his vote or the motivation of any of the republican senators who voted against what the democrats were trying to do. if anyone other than donald trump did a midnight mass firing of inspectors general, you would have seen the chuck grassley, who i knew and worked with all over television, condemning that

presidential action and immediately calling for an investigation in each committee of the senate about the workings of those inspectors general. but 91 year old chuck grassley has changed positions or silenced himself on so many issues, including tariffs in the trump era, that it comes as no surprise that the most he was willing to come up with after something i know he deeply objects to, was this statement. there may be good reason the igs were fired. we need to know that. if so, i'd like further explanation from president trump. regardless, the 30 day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to congress. releasing that written statement meant the chuck grassley didn't have to handle the question lindsey graham had to handle. was it

illegal? i really miss the pre-trump chuck grassley. there were times when i thought of chuck grassley as in senate terms, at least, courageous in his consistency, and i personally disagreed with the policies he was so consistently supporting. mark greenblatt was the inspector. inspector general of the department of interior until this weekend. >> the key question here. >> is, is who does the president. >> appoint in the place. of the igs that he's removed? >> we are. the we're so-called watchdogs inside the federal agency. >> so does. >> he appoint. >> true watchdogs. >> or does he appoint lapdogs? >> if a member. >> of. the trump administration. >> is accused of ethics. misconduct or. >> some. sort of. criminal violation, will the. ig be. >> willing to. >> investigate that in a fulsome

and comprehensive manner? >> will they be willing to come to. >> findings. negative findings. about that trump political appointee? that is the key question. >> and so this morning, thanks to donald trump, when pete hegseth reported to work at the pentagon today for the first time as secretary of defense, he had the pleasure of knowing as he entered the building that he wouldn't have to go through the metal detector. and there was no inspector general left in the pentagon, no one in the pentagon empowered to investigate. pete hegseth. >> the american. >> people. >> if we. don't have good and. >> independent inspector. >> generals. >> are going to see. >> the swamp refill. >> they're. >> going to see rampant. >> waste, fraud. >> they're going to see corruption. it may be the president's goal here when he's got a.

>> meme coin that's. making him. >> billions, is to. >> remove anyone. >> that's going to call the. >> public attention. >> to his malfeasance. >> joining us now is senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. she's a member of the senate judiciary committee. and senator. >> you. >> lawrence. >> you remember the chuck grassley before donald trump, the chuck grassley, who would have been all over this before donald trump? >> well. >> as chair of the senate judiciary committee, senator grassley has an opportunity to still stand up. >> on. >> this, and i hope he. senator ernst, other republicans who respect whistleblowers have supported whistleblowers through multiple administrations will do that because, as you have pointed out, this middle of the night purge of these government watchdogs who protect our taxpayer money was a complete abuse of power. thinking of all these agencies, you point out the department of defense, where you can now have kickbacks. no one's watching over it. you will

contracts be awarded to the actual lowest contract? no one's watching it over it. and while donald trump's friends may be able to pad their pockets, there is going to be no one watching over for the cost for everyday americans. so there is a straight line, as you know, between corruption, chaos and cost for americans. and that's why we are standing up against this. the fact that these people, they reported to work this morning, they reported to work this morning, lawrence, they were doing their jobs. and that 30 day notice was put in there by chuck grassley and others so that the congress, the equal branch of government to the executive branch, could stand up and say, wait a minute, this is wrong. >> what happens next? are these firings in effect, it sounds like some of them didn't show up today. it isn't clear to me. >> well. >> obviously there are. we've got to join with some of these republicans if they're willing to join with us. otherwise,

we're going to do it on our own and push this issue. it was a clear violation of the law in two ways, not the 30 day notice. that may sound small, but i think your calm, calm viewers, after reading chris hayes book tomorrow hour, understand that this hair on fire moment has to be handled methodically. this was against the law, and it also that he didn't give the reasons for doing it. this reason that we have changing priorities. what changing priorities from this inspector general act that says we've got to root out fraud, corruption and kickbacks and bribes. of course, that's got to be a priority of the united states congress, no matter who's running it. so we will continue to push this push for reappointments of these people and push our republican colleagues to actually stand up against fraud and abuse. >> and, senator, this idea that just to underline it, that, oh, well, you know, we need

inspectors general who agree with the president's agenda. there's not supposed to be an agenda in a inspector general's office. >> they are independent. they are bipartisan. they have gone after fraud and abuse and kickbacks and bribes under both republican and democratic administrations. and that's why they are set up the way they were. and senator grassley was actually in congress before this law even passed and understands how important it is. this is a full out purge. this isn't just 1 or 2 people that they felt weren't doing their jobs. what they did here is they did an all out purge and literally stated in an email that it didn't fit with their changing priorities. i think that rooting out bribes and kickbacks and patting people's pockets because they get kickbacks, whether it's defense contractors, whether it's with health and human

services, all of these under various administrations, things have been found out and taxpayer money has been saved. brookings institute, if you remember one number, remember this every dollar invested in inspectors general has brought back $13 to the american taxpayers. >> yeah, it's like money invested in irs agents. it's a profit center. senator amy klobuchar, thank you very much for starting off our discussion tonight. >> great to be on. thanks, lawrence. >> thank you. coming up today, donald trump fired or tried to fire all of the career prosecutors at the justice department who worked on jack smith's investigations of donald trump. that's next. with former federal prosecutors andrew weissman and brendan bellow. >> safelite repair. safelite replace. >> nobody likes a cracked windshield. >> but at least you can go to safelite. >> com and. schedule a fix. >> in minutes. go to safelite. >> in minutes. go to safelite. com and sch dexcom g7 sends your glucose numbers

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xfinity internet customers, cut your mobile bill in half vs. t-mobile, verizon, and at&t for your first year. plus, ask how to get the new samsung galaxy s25+ on us. >> invisible on. >> the skin. it works like a dream. >> why didn't someone think of this sooner? >> senate minority leader chuck schumer is trying to get a vote in the senate this week on a simple one word resolution,

resolved, that the senate disapproves of any pardons for individuals who are found guilty of assaulting capitol police officers. couldn't be simpler. a resolution disapproving of the pardons of the people found guilty of assaulting capitol police officers. all 47 democrats in the senate support that resolution, and it might even pick up a republican vote or two. >> i'm fear that you will get more violence pardoning the people who went. >> into the capitol. >> and. >> beat up a police. >> officer violently, i think. >> was a mistake. >> because it seems. >> to suggest. >> that's an okay thing to do. >> on thursday, our next guest, brendan bellew, resigned from the justice department after serving as a prosecutor of january 6th. defendants. in an essay for the new york times, he described the prosecution of julius and mark middleton, a married couple from texas, who

proudly announced on facebook, we fought the cops. one moment from their trial has stuck with me sitting in the courtroom in the awkward minutes before their verdict was announced, i noticed that mr. middleton was wearing trump socks with the president's face stitched into the side. that small sign of fealty struck me as incredibly sad. the middleton's were ready to go to prison for a man who quite likely didn't care about them at all. today, donald trump, through his acting attorney general james mchenry, fired prosecutors who worked on jack smith's cases against donald trump. the new york times reports. acting attorney general james mchenry on monday fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the two criminal investigations into donald j. trump for the special counsel, jack smith, saying they could not be trusted to faithfully implement the president's agenda. a justice department

spokesman said justice department veterans called the firings an egregious violation of well-established laws meant to preserve the integrity and professionalism of government agencies. what made it all the more jarring, current and former officials said, was that such a momentous and aggressive step was initiated by an obscure acting attorney general operating operating on behalf of a president with a stated desire for vengeance and few advisors with the stature or inclination to restrain him. the department did not name the fired prosecutors, but a person who worked with some members of mr. smith's team said many of the dismissals appeared to target career lawyers and most likely violated civil service protections for nonpolitical employees. in the letters to the prosecutors, which were transmitted electronically on monday afternoon, mr. mchenry claimed that mr. trump had constitutional authority over personnel matters under article two of the constitution to fire career staff members. the email

said given your significant role in prosecuting the president, i do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president's agenda faithfully, the firing memo said. joining our discussion now is former federal prosecutor brendan belew, who worked on the prosecutions of 6th january, six defendants. he resigned from the justice department last week. also with us, andrew weissman, former fbi general counsel and msnbc legal analyst. andrew, i want to begin with you on these these firings and saying in an email, a justice department email to a career justice department official, we don't trust you with the president's agenda in a department that is not supposed to carry the president's agenda. >> so you're absolutely right. so if it came to the president's policy positions, for instance, the president saying, i want you to focus on drugs or i. >> want you to. >> focus on the border.

>> that's fine. >> but position, which is prosecute these. >> people and. >> not those people, that is the norm that republican and democratic administrations post-watergate adhered to precisely because. >> that maintains our democracy. you do. >> not. >> want any. >> president to be able to do that. >> the idea that you have the acting attorney general, that is the head law enforcement officer sending out that email and starting his career off by doing something that, by all appearances, violates the civil service protections on the theory of the president, says it. that's legal. we you know very well a president who said that, who had to resign from office here. there's civil service protections for career people for very good reasons. this is so much in keeping with your segment with senator klobuchar. it is really sort of the beginning of the end. >> of the. >> rule. of law with the doj

purge that is going on. >> so they will sue. what will they do? >> so if you're a career prosecutor who has not been fired for cause, this does not appear to have any of the indicia for cause at all. you can bring a lawsuit. i don't envy these people. that's not why you went to the department of justice to bring a civil suit. just like andy mccabe, who was the acting deputy acting head of the fbi. he did the same thing, and he won his lawsuit. these people, it seems. >> to me he got backpay. >> he gets back pay, etc. but from donald trump's perspective, the message is sent out. there lives are hurt. the message to all other people is to toe the line or else you're not put in this position. but yes, i think these people have a very good lawsuit. i think they will get back pay and, you know, their names sort of reinstated in terms of, you know, they're being noble and good career servants, but the damage is

already done. but just to put a fine point on it, this is the acting attorney general of the united states who took this step. that is the head law enforcement officer who is doing something that completely violates, in my view, civil service rules. >> pam bondi has to be very happy that she hasn't had her final senate confirmation vote yet, so she didn't have to do this. >> on someone else's watch. absolutely. >> brendan, you were still working in the justice department on monday when the pardons were issued. what was that like for you in the building that day? where were you the moment you heard about the pardons? what did you feel? >> you know, obviously it was a devastating moment for anybody that was working on these prosecutions for years. and i should say that obviously i was a small part of a very large effort, but my first thought was not so much about the prosecutors in these cases, but the victims. i think that this administration would like to characterize this as a fight between the president and the

prosecutors. but i don't think that's a fair characterization. what this is really a fight is between the president and the victims of january 6th. the officers who were attacked, who were dragged into crowds, who were amazed, who were killed, and the president's agenda kind of depends on those people being forgotten. >> and it seems an attack on the judgments made by the judges in this case, including all many statements they made during sentencing. >> absolutely. you know, it was interesting, the all the prosecutions happened in the district of columbia, and the judges that we worked with became intimately familiar with the attack on the capitol, knowing very specific parts of the building, you know, individual officers and so forth. i think at some level, they, too, were emotionally involved in what happened that day. so you see that in some of the statements that judges are making, even as they dismiss some of these cases, saying that the memory of january 6th can't

be forgotten. and i think it's important for, you know, not only, you know, former prosecutors to be saying that, but for judges on the bench. >> so you you stay you stayed after the trump inauguration. what i'm now going to say is all the way to thursday, which is which is like a long run for someone who was already there. what did it feel like day to day? this a firing order might come. >> oh, absolutely. you know, as soon as as soon as the orders were coming in on monday, it was obvious, at least for me personally, that that my tenure there was very limited. and, you know, you were seeing, you know, news unfold by the hour as the new leadership at the u.s. attorney's office came in. i think, as andrew said, you know, this is a real attempt at attacking the integrity and independence of the justice department and in a broader sense, the entire rule of law. so i think the work that you guys are doing to draw attention to this is really important, because it's the only way we're going to stop it. >> brendan belew, thank you for your service. and i know people

in our audience want to thank you, too. andrew weissmann, thank you for joining our discussion tonight. and coming up, congressman jamie raskin put his objections to donald trump's firing of inspector general in writing. congressman raskin will join us on that. and the firing of justice department officials of justice department officials today. that's hey, grab more delectables. you know, that lickable cat treat? de-lick-able delectables? yes, just hurry. hmm. it must be delicious. delectables lickable treat. brave first timer. >> let's pause. >> for the facts. sure, it. >> looks safe, but like nearly half of all used cars, it's been in an accident with carfax. com you see how accidents impact price so you don't have to overpay. >> unpause. >> accidents. you were space. >> you're gonna need it. >> wait.

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to quote the honorable donald j.

trump. we write to express our grave concern about your recent attempt to unlawfully and arbitrarily remove more than a dozen independent, nonpartisan inspectors general without notice to congress or the public. and in the dead of night. your actions violate the law, attack our democracy, and undermine the safety of the american people. joining our discussion now is democratic congressman jamie raskin of maryland. he's a ranking member of the house judiciary committee and a former member of the january 6th committee. and congressman, as chris hayes is going to tell us later in the hour, donald trump knows how to get attention. he knows exactly what he wants to get attention for. he wants you to get it. wants to get attention to greenland. would love to have us talking about that when he's doing something in the dark of night, as you put it. that's the thing he doesn't want us to talk about. well. >> hundreds of billions of dollars have been saved by the inspectors general who are blowing the whistle on corruption and fraud and sweetheart contracts and inside deals in the federal agencies.

>> i thought that was going to be elon musk's job because no one was doing that job. >> yeah, well, he's. >> going. to stay. >> very closely abreast of the. >> situation, let's put. >> it that way. >> the you know, the sacking of these. igs means that there's nobody. there to. be a watchdog against any of these semi criminal. elements that are moving into the federal departments and agencies. it's an absolute takeover of the us government and the money of the people. >> what will you be looking for now as a result of this? i mean, it's at some point there will be maybe not inspectors general appointed, maybe not. who knows? well, they watchdog. >> not just money. >> but also policies. right. >> so we have. >> this avian. >> flu, the bird. >> flu which is now taking. >> over, you know, hundreds. of different farms. >> and. >> zoos. >> billions of animals. >> already have been lost to it. and there's. >> already been a human victim. >> it's moving over. well, if you know, bobby. kennedy jr

were. >> actually to. >> become the secretary of hhs, only the. ig would be on the inside of the department to watch what's going. >> on. >> to see whether we are actually getting the. policy advice and. >> precautions that. >> the people need. >> to survive. >> the next epidemic. >> another concern of yours, this firing today of the jack smith prosecutors also appears to be illegal. yeah. >> full blown assault at the department of justice to sack the. >> prosecutors who. >> have been upholding the law. these are career. >> prosecutors. >> part of the. >> civil service. absolute professionals with. >> complete integrity. >> and they're sacking. >> the ones who participated in the special counsel. investigation just for being put on that team. >> and at. >> the. >> same time, the u.s. attorney in the district. >> of columbia is actually investigating its own. prosecutors for. participating in. >> the. >> cases against the january 6th insurrectionists. so, you know, people have been saying for a

while. >> that in. >> congress, the inmates have taken over the asylum. >> it's like the. >> criminals are. >> now running. >> the department. >> of justice. >> and the criminal. investigative apparatus. >> of the united states. >> you know, i'm impressed that those prosecutors, those jack smith career prosecutors stayed. i mean, they knew this kind of heat was coming in their direction. they could have decided weeks ago, you know what? i'm going to get myself to the safety of a law firm in private practice as soon as possible. they stayed indicating to me they wanted to stay in this department and still try to do the work in this department. >> i mean, these. people believe in the mission of the department of justice. they believe. >> in. >> that very. >> old fashioned institution of the rule of law, and they want to be part of it. a lot of them also may. >> be a year. >> or two away from. earning their. federal retirement after devoting. their entire careers. >> to federal prosecution. >> and it's scandalous. >> what's taking. >> place against. >> the career prosecutors. >> we're not talking about.

>> you know, joe biden appointees. >> we're talking about people who went in. >> there just to enforce the rule of law. >> congressman jamie raskin, so nice to have you in the studio here in new york. thank you very much for joining us. my pleasure. and chris hayes has written a wonderful new book, which i happen to have right here that is important for all of us, including your kids. yeah, there's politics in the book, but it's actually about nothing less than the inner workings of your own mind. that's something you want to (fisher investments) want to at fisher investments we may look like other money managers, but we're different. (other money manager) you can't be that different. (fisher investments) we are. we have a team of specialists not only in investing, but also in financial and estate planning and more. (other money manager) your clients rely on you for all that? (fisher investments) yes. and as a fiduciary, we always put their interests first. (other money manager) but you still sell commission- based products, right? (fisher investments) no. we have a simple management fee structured so we do better when our clients do better. (other money manager) huh, we're more different than i thought! (fisher investments) at fisher investments, we're clearly different.

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all. against all for attention. commerce is a war for attention. social life is a war for attention. parenting is a war for attention. and we are all feeling battle weary. this book is an attempt at finding peace. joining us now is our 8 p.m. msnbc friend, chris hayes. he's also host of the podcast why is this happening? and his brilliant new book, available tomorrow. in my hands right now is the siren's call how attention became the world's most endangered resource. i love this book. that means a lot. it's one of those things that is, i was like, you know, an inch away from thinking or if i if i had the attention span to get to it, i would have said, wait a minute, what's happening to our attention span? and i

think i've had some instinctive feelings about this, but to see it all laid out and then presenting attention as currency, presenting it as an objective, presenting it as an obvious trumpian objective, a musk objective, it's just fascinating to pull it all together. >> well thank you. i mean, it was partly, i think, the product, you know, the gestation of it is the work that we do, which is, you know. you've got to keep you're. >> trying to get a little attention at 8 p.m. >> yeah. right. exactly. >> it's like we're, you know, we're in the minds, like. >> that's what we. >> got to do. so i think part of it too, is just thinking about it as fundamentally as a resource, that that attention is a resource, that it has value when it can be extracted and pooled in the aggregate. and that that value of that resource has become kind of the defining resource of. our time, both in private life, in commercial life, and certainly in public life, as we've seen that. and there's this moment, you know, as this book is coming out, i'm writing it. and at the inauguration, you've got it's like donald trump, who, of

course, is his entire public life, is to dominate the attentional space. and then elon musk and tim cook and zuckerberg and all the. >> tech ceos. >> who monetize attention to. >> make their fortunes. sitting in a row. >> next to him, all in the same frame at the inauguration, like completely. >> on the. >> nose of what. >> the commanding heights. >> of both public and private commercial life are right now. >> when did you start writing this? when did you start worrying about what was happening to our attention? >> you know, i it's been i think it's been happening over. >> a long period of time. you started last week, right? it's like it's like it's so au courant. >> you know, i started i've been thinking about it a long time. you know. >> i was actually. >> thinking about. >> this the. >> other day that when. >> we were covering. >> isis back in 2013 or so, 2014, i was very aware of the fact that they were doing something intentional to get our. >> attention right. >> and there was something there was a trap they had. >> laid, right. >> it was both newsworthy. >> yeah. >> and also clearly a. >> propaganda effort. >> to. >> capture mindshare. yeah. and

i. >> remember thinking about. >> the. >> conundrum they had put us in. and that. >> conundrum. >> obviously, unless horrific and violent terms, is a conundrum that sort of stalks. us out about so many, so many things that are compelling attention almost against our will and in so doing are taking away some fundamental part of our agency. >> yeah. so i had a small bore experience of that in this job when i the one thing i didn't think i could do and i really couldn't do when i started this job, was cover school shootings. and i actually i actually said the first time it came up when i was new at this job, i said, i can't do it. you have to bring someone else in. that night. sadly, i'm now professional enough to be able to do that. but what i noticed when i was sitting at home was i noticed these pictures of the shooter and the name and all that, and the one contribution i had for myself when i started doing it was i said, i'm never going to say the name. they did it to be on tv. they did it for this attention. i'm not going to give them that with the name. and i realized, i realized through the book, oh, i see what i was

doing. i was trying to pull back some attention that was being demanded in the most evil way. >> in the most evil way. the sort of mass shooter is the most the darkest. most nihilistic. endpoint of exactly this kind of, you know, desire to compel attention by any means necessary. and what you do with it, i mean, i talk about it, you know, the troll, right? a much less horrific and dark version of this, who's just a jerk. >> in public space, right? that jerk. >> in public space, you know, you pay attention to him. someone's screaming on the subway. if someone's. being a bore at a party, right like that. but that that negativity ends up being a shortcut to hack our attentional circuitry. and we see it with the troll in chief, right? i mean, the president and the co-president, this is both how they practice politics. >> so your final chapter, like like in all good medical textbooks about the cure is, is fascinating is what do we do about this? let me tell you what

i have intuitively done about it without before i ever read the book. and i started doing this, i think, before trump, and that is saturdays and sundays. i consume absolutely nothing. zero. i have no idea what happens in the news on saturday or sunday if i run into somebody, you know, if i'm at a dinner saturday night, say, hey, this thing happened, i don't know. and literally this is how big it has to be. the one saturday news event that i can remember or sunday news event, i guess it was last year, was president biden saying, i'm not. i'm going to step out of the race. that got to me. i couldn't. >> manage to. >> find you people in the stores in the little town i was in started running around, so that reached me. but that's how removed and i and i and now why are you doing that? i am doing that. i was i was doing that, i believe because i simply intuitively felt there's just way too much vibration here. and i've got to the rpms are running too high on this. i can't look at twitter, i can't look at and

so i just intuitively felt something was happening to me that you have not described to me exactly what was happening to me. and i kind of self-medicated that way, so that as the staff here can tell you, there's a lot of stuff i have to be informed about on monday afternoons that they thought i would have known, you know, by saturday morning, but but that's one method by one person. >> and partly. >> i think, what. >> you know, i write about this in the book, like being alone with our own thoughts. >> yeah. >> is a really important. >> part of the human. >> condition of being alive. >> yeah. >> and we have become acclimated to ever more diversion. blaise pascal is writing, you know, in the 17th century. he says, think about the king. the king has every diversion available to him. and yet he needs he needs evermore, right. so that thing that you're doing yourself, which is like, i'm going to preserve some space for my own inner life. >> yeah. >> is actually, like, crucial to being alive. >> yeah. >> it's also crucial to focus. i mean, that's the other thing. i

think we all feel that in a distracted age, focus is power. right? and we're fighting particularly in this first week. i mean, it's to focus. right. and that's that's another thing i think we're learning to kind of hold on to that. >> and i've also become a much more intense, long form reader of history, like take big, ponderous history books and just read them for hours on end. and i have real trouble putting them down. whereas i'd say decades ago, certainly in college, i would have had trouble picking them up. and but there's something therapeutic, and i feel completely removed from from this in doing it. >> yeah. i have. >> the delight of writing. >> the book has been forcing me to go back into long texts and really engage. >> with the control room is telling us our time is up. >> i know i'm trying to be. i'm trying to be a good boy. >> you've been very helpful. but the new book is the siren's call how attention became the world's most endangered resource. it's available everywhere tomorrow. get it? it's important you need it. your kids need it. we

haven't even get to the stuff about parenting, which is here, which is very important. chris hayes thank you lawrence. i really appreciate it. parent in brooklyn i know that's a lot of younger kids because i know too many parents in brooklyn. we'll be right back. >> buying a car is kind. >> of a big deal. there's like a million options and you deserve. >> something you love. at cargurus, we get it. >> as the number. >> one most visited car. shopping site, we make sure your. >> big deal. >> is the best deal. >> is the best deal. >> striker is. ♪ music ♪ ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ ♪ unnecessary. ♪ was that necessary? no. neither is missing your daughter's competition to do payroll. with paycom, employees do their own payroll so you don't have to miss your daughter's big day. time to shine. get paycom and make the unnecessary unnecessary.

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it brings people together in meaningful ways. >> on. >> the skin. it works like a dream. why didn't someone. >> think of this sooner? >> the first 100 days, it's a critical time for our country. and rachel maddow is on five nights a week. >> now is the time. so we're going to do it. settle in. >> the rachel maddow show weeknights at 9:00 on msnbc. >> this show began and continues being the place to have the hard conversations. >> to understand more with msnbc. >> chris hayes gets tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. >> tonight. >> the trump administration ramps up its nationwide immigration crackdown. a closer look on who is beingge